Day 2 || Gukanglang Village

Today is the first day of my real Development Traineeship. I was really scared as I walked from Mrs Liu's house to Gukanglang Village (Kangle Village)

Will it looks like the village back in my home country? All built with woods.. or by bricks?

My mind swirled with strange thoughts as I was made my way to the target location. After 10 minutes walk, I finally reached. It was not as what I had imagined, it looks more of a proper community building instead of something I had imagined earlier on.

- Kangle Community -

I was welcomed by the other elders - whom I called them as "A Yi" or "Ma Ma". All of them are around my mother's age, and some already having grand children. I began my day with preparation of the food (though I may not help much inside the kitchen since I am not much of a cooker myself ><, but this trip will definitely helps me to improve my cooking skills hopefully, thanks to my "Ma Ma-s" here). At 10.00am, a group of travelers from Taipei came to visit us with Lin Bo Zhang as the tour guide. Today was also the first time I was introduced of TN's routine activities. We started with DIY Hakka Noodle (Mi Tai Mu).

and Ta-Da, the famous Hakka Wheat Noodle

After the DIY Noodle making session, I joined in the group to move to another location such as the WWII Bullet-holed Wall, Zhuang's and Lin's Ancient Residence, 100 years-old well, Wangshifu Temple etc. To sum them all up, Kangle Village is a place with a strong ancient taste worth visiting!

The most eye-catching part was not about the house remains but that of a contribution of a great artist which depict the life of a farmer back in the past years. He constructed the whole painting using small rounded and colored glasses. Clever eh ? Now there is a way to not to waste one's time in cleaning a painted wall.
It took him 2 months to construct it.

After the short tour, we were brought to a showroom which displays all kinds of historical artifacts and architecture of the past (mainly farming tools as agriculture has been the main driver of Kangle Village for over 300 years)

The whole trip ends at 1.00 pm and we were brought back to the Kangle Gathering place to have our lunch. Remember about the food preparation I was helping in the morning? That's my lunch :)

One of the most memorable food was their "Fried Cai Bo"; they were organically grown and hand picked in-house. A must try delicacy !!

- Before frying -

- After frying -

Having my stomach filled to the rim, we were brought to the second floor where the volunteers usually do their paper works and other activities. Kangle Community often conduct activities for the elderlies; one of them was arts and craft. In the showroom, there are displays of their artworks. All of which are constructed through papers.

Can you believe that all of these are done by 60-years old and above ??

There are still much to write about my trip in Hsin Chu. Will be writing more~stay tuned :)